The learned Dodwell admits, that the books which compose the New Testament did not appear in public, until at least 100 Years after Christ. If this fact be certain, how shall we convince ourselves that they existed prior to this time? These books were solely entrusted to the care of the ecclesiastical gentry, till the third or fourth century, that is to say, to the guardianship of men, whose conduct was universally regulated by self interest and party spirit, and who possessed neither the probity nor knowledge requisite for discovering the truth, or of transmitting it in its original purity. Thus each doctor had the power of making such holy books as he pleased, and when, under Constantine, the Christians saw themselves supported by the Emperor, their chiefs were able to accept, and cause to be accepted as authentic, and of rejecting as apocryphal, such books as suited their interest, or did not agree with the prevailing doctrine. But were we even sure of the authenticity of the books, which the church of this day adopts, we are nevertheless, without any other guarantee of the authority of the scriptures than the books themselves. Is there a history which has the right to prove itself by itself? Can we rely upon witnesses who give no other proof of what they advance than their own words? Yet the first Christians have rendered themselves famous by their deceptions, their factions, and their frauds, which are termed pious when they tend to the advantage of religion. Have not these pious falsehoods been ascribed to the works of Jesus Christ himself and to the Apostles his successors? Have we not, in their manner, sybilline verses, which are evidently all Christian prophecies, made afterwards, and often copied word for word into the Old and New Testament? If it had pleased the Fathers at the council of Nice, to regard these prophecies as divinely inspired, what or who should have prevented them from inserting them into the canon of the Scriptures? And from that the Christians would not have failed to regard them in the present day, as indubitable proofs of the truth of their religion. If the Christians at the commencement of Christianity, gave credit to works filled with reveries, such as the Shepherd of Hermas, the Gospel of the Infancy, the Letter of Jesus Christ to Algarus, what confidence can we have in such of their books as remain? Can we flatter ourselves, with having even these such as they were originally written? How can we at the present time, distinguish the true from the false, in books, in which enthusiasm, roguery and credulity pervade every page.